Confessions of a mall-adjusted Christmas shopper

A nuts-and-bolts guide to the poach-and-dangle method for relieving holiday stress

December 18, 2013|John Kass

As you hit the stores this holiday season, remember: Ride poachers and key danglers walk among us, and look no different from the average law-abiding citizen. (Terrence Antonio James, Chicago Tribune)

In those brightly festooned American shopping malls full of stress and anxiety, I am the person you least expect.

I'm a revolving-door ride poacher.

And that may not be the worst of it. I'm also a car-key dangler, walking aimlessly through crowded mall parking lots with absolutely no intention of finding my car.

Call me crazy, but it's the way I get through the torture of the malls.

The main thing is that I'm a ride poacher. I'll ride-poach little old ladies, tiny kids, you name it. They're all fair game in this season of peace and love.

The peace-and-love part of the season is hardly mentioned in the malls, as it gets in the way of commerce. And besides, most Americans have been re-educated into thinking this time of year should be devoted to the Buy Lotsa Stuff You Can't Afford and Go Into Debt Festival.

Me? I'd rather call it by its old, almost forgotten and vaguely subversive name: Christmas.

Christmas is a season that produces great joy, away from retail stores, when we remember what the holiday is really about and that it's not about buying lotsa stuff.

But is there joy while shopping? No. It's all stress. Don't even pretend that you don't know the stress that I'm talking about.

Stress about finding a parking place so you can buy lotsa stuff. Stress about waiting in a mall so your family can buy lotsa stuff, stress that your wife dragged you there, stress from watching people buy lotsa stuff.

Stress from wondering what it was like in the days before we felt the need to buy lotsa stuff. Stress from being in a mall, while wondering how your hostess will take it when you tell her you'd rather die than eat her Jell-O with the chunks of floating fruit at Christmas dinner.

Of course, you never tell her that. You eat the stupid Jell-O. Just knowing it adds to the stress.

So you deal with it your way, I deal with it my way. It begins with ride-poaching. I've confessed it before, and I'll confess it again, because I just can't stop myself.

Is that wrong?

Here's what you do: Just slide into a revolving door at a shopping mall crammed with stressed-out people and pretend to push. The trick is that you don't really push. Just let those behind you do all the pushing. This way, you don't have to touch the handle crawling with germs that are likely immune to antibiotics.

And you catch a free ride. Cheap thrills? Of course. Poaching rides is like being a Chicago politician, only without having to run for office or worry about getting indicted.

"I thought it was just people being lazy," wrote John K. (not me) on Facebook, "but I see it's a real art ... or is it a science?"

Yes, it is a real art. One of the low arts, to be sure, but still an art.

Many are drawn to the deftness of a ride poacher's life. So much so that someone posted a rather amusing Tribune video from a few years ago about ride-poaching (OK, I did it) and immediately, people lined up for or against. Most were against.

One anti-poacher was Linda, whose husband is a Chicago police officer who once walked a criminal through the revolving doors at the criminal courts building:

"My husband refused to let a guy poach a ride. He was at 26th & Cal. My husband saw the poacher and stopped the door. The guy had his hands in his pockets and dashed his forehead on the door. He told the guy that the door was a microcosm of life. ... You can't get by without at least a little effort."

Is there risk? Yes. Poaching artfully, without your victims being aware, is a subtle art.

"The best thing to do while going thru with a poacher," said a guy named Robert R., "is to lean your body on the glass behind you and bring the door to a halt. … I am so fed up with self-centered people that I will confront them head on."

Please, Robert, don't confront me. Please.

Kayt N. said she'd twice been ride-poached while purchasing a coffee beverage:

"I've been ride-poached twice, two separate occasions, by a tall guy in dark clothes sipping on his Starbucks. He was a grinning sipper, like he knew he was getting the free ride. Both times, I told him 'You're welcoooooome!' ha ha."

It couldn't possibly have been me, as I'm rather short-shanked.

Another way to relieve stress when you have to go to the mall because your wife said so is to go key-dangling.

That's when I tell my wife that I'm going for a walk. But I'm really going key-dangling, something I saw on TV years ago.

Just walk through a crowded mall parking lot, your keys dangling from your fingertips, and automobiles begin to follow you the way hungry hyenas follow a wart hog.

Keep walking up and down, turning this way and that, whistling happy tunes, smiling at everyone, and it begins.

One car will follow, hoping to grab your space. Then another car, then another, the driver of the last car probably thinking that the lead car will give up.

I've had as many as six cars follow me. This very well may be a record. See if you can beat it.